We see further

Leaders in global
precision optics

KiwiStar Optics designs, manufactures, and installs everything from one off components to complete optical systems.

KiwiStar Optics crafts the precision optics that are unlocking the universe at leading observatories. Helping astronomers capture and split starlight for over 50 years. We’ve made some of the planet’s biggest lenses for its best telescopes. Our reputation as a global leader in precision optics is built on consistent excellence and innovation.

KiwiStar Optics, global leader in precision optics for astronomy

What we do

Trusted by the world's best observatories

Large Precision
Optics

We specialise in customised, tightly-toleranced lens elements from 0.25m to over 1m in diameter.

Spectrograph
Solutions

Our custom-build and turnkey Spectrograph solutions for small to medium size telescopes.

Astronomical
Instruments

We make high quality mirrors, prisms, filters, cameras, image slicers and turnkey components.

Capabilities

Excellence
and Innovation

We love a challenge. We expect to evolve and invent with you. We know that great results depend on great communication, every step of the way. Our reputation as a global leader in precision optics is built on consistent excellence and innovation.

Our scientists, engineers and master opticians draw on decades of experience and a love of what they do.

Design

Integration​

Manufacture

Experience

Case Studies

The Thirty Meter telescope

KiwiStar Optics successfully delivered on a ground-breaking and demanding project to manufacture, polish, and test the largest optical component ever produced in Australasia.

The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project is a joint venture between scientific institutions in Canada, China, India, Japan and the US to build a 30m diameter Ritchey-Chretien optical infrared telescope.

In the press

Precision Optics News

A bushfire at Mt Solitary, NSW. Image: Adobe Stock/Leah-Anne Thompson

KiwiStar Optics optical system to be used in Australian space research centre R&D project for bushfire resilience

KiwiStar Optics and EOS Space Systems will play an integral part of a research project co-funded by Smartsat CRC and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Government. On 22 September 2023, Australia’s leading space research centre, SmartSat Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) announced a suite of new R&D projects and university appointments …

Victoria University degree in Space Science, a world first

By Anthony Young, CapitalNZ News Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington will become the first university in New Zealand to offer Space Science as an undergraduate major, fuelled by increasing interest in a growing national space industry. A focus on ‘near space’ makes it unique internationally. Dr Tulasi …

KiwiStar Optics News, KSO team at SPIE 2022

KiwiStar Optics Exhibits at SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2022

After two years of COVID-19 restrictions, a team from KiwiStar Optics – Dr Andrew Rakich, myself and Dave Cochrane (pictured above) – took to the skies and headed to SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2022 the symposium in Montreal, Canada. This prestigious event, which has the aim of advancing the field of astronomical engineering, attracts …

A bushfire at Mt Solitary, NSW. Image: Adobe Stock/Leah-Anne Thompson

KiwiStar Optics optical system to be used in Australian space research centre R&D project for bushfire resilience

KiwiStar Optics and EOS Space Systems will play an integral part of a research project co-funded by Smartsat CRC and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Government. On 22 September 2023, Australia’s leading space research centre, SmartSat Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) announced a suite of new R&D projects and university appointments …

Victoria University degree in Space Science, a world first

By Anthony Young, CapitalNZ News Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington will become the first university in New Zealand to offer Space Science as an undergraduate major, fuelled by increasing interest in a growing national space industry. A focus on ‘near space’ makes it unique internationally. Dr Tulasi …